Matt D Posted June 18, 2014 Report Share Posted June 18, 2014 It's amazing how far things have turned in a few months. The optimism of earlier this year, the idea that once they got the TV deal they'd be bulletproof and the network would be all bonus! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted June 18, 2014 Report Share Posted June 18, 2014 They didn't even promote that the Clashes were up. They just put them up and said nothing about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 18, 2014 Report Share Posted June 18, 2014 As much as I hate to say it, this is starting to have all the markings of a project Vince is losing interest on. Except this time they boned their PPV revenues in the process. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petey Posted June 18, 2014 Report Share Posted June 18, 2014 Vince really can't afford to lose interest in The Network. I also think he knows it's probably the last big thing he's gonna head as leader of the company and I'd imagine it's important to him that The Network succeeds in order to have a positive impact on his legacy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anotherspammer Posted June 18, 2014 Report Share Posted June 18, 2014 Maybe Vince will regain interest if they put all the old WBF episodes up? I haven't analyzed WWE's finances nearly as much as others in this thread, but would it make sense for WWE to start focusing on the Network and ticket sales to live events as their biggest sources of revenue? It seems like their tv rights are not going to substantially change, but I think if they use the Network as a way of promoting house shows (through occassional live broadcasts, title changes or injury angles happening on house shows, footage of goofy shit, etc) they could promote attendance. Unless the cost of filming the house shows isn't worth it. Edit: "biggest source of revenue" is not the best phrase to use. What I'm getting at is their TV Rights feesdon't seem likely to change much, no matter what sort of effort they make. Other revenue streams, like the Network and live events may increase if they got more attention. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mookeighana Posted June 18, 2014 Report Share Posted June 18, 2014 You can look at Historic WWE Financials here: http://indeedwrestling.blogspot.com/2014/02/pure-wwfwwe-financials-1994-2013.html TV Rights have grown from less than a quarter of WWE revenue in 2009 (23.5%) to almost a third (31.7%) by 2013. And they're getting another boost at the end of this year/beginning of next year. Plus WWE's contracts for annual increases written in so they'll keep growing even though they won't be renegotiating the big deals. Live Events have been stuck at about 22% of the WWE revenue for several years. They figured out how to juice that a bit recently by adding VIP ticket packages and raising top end ticket prices (i.e. trying to reduce amount of tickets that were bought and immediately resold on stubhub at a premium), but WWE's stagnant live event attendance averages (domestically flat, internationally falling) are certainly an impediment to growing this stream much above the $111M it was last year. This area does need some attention. PPV was their third largest revenue stream at 16%. That's $60M (domestic) and $20M (int'l) that is being converted (in some form) from 50% profit to whatever they're going to get out of the WWE Network revenue stream. After that is Licensing which is at $47M (10%) and could be bigger. However, the Video Game revenues are a good example of where the golden goose isn't working quite so well anymore. Merchandise (including WWE ShopZone) is at 7% ($35M) which is decent, but not going to explode anytime soon. It's been as low as $32M and high as $36M. I guess that's a 10% variance, but you can see the base seems pretty steady these days. Home Entertainment is shrinking - it's sdropped from $39M in 2009 to $24M in 2013. I see the WWE Network hurting sales and of course the DVD/BluRay industry is on the downswing in general. However, it might not die as quickly as originally thought. WWE.com was $23M in 2013 (4.5%) and has been growing. They reorganized the segments this year so most of the Digital Media revenues are together (including WWE Network) which is smart. Publishing is at less than $6M (down more than 50% from 2009) and barely breaks even. Perhaps they'll figure out how to make it profitable in a digital age. The fact they haven't announced a replacement for Perkins Miller (EVP of Digital) isn't good because they need leadership in that space. I was interested to see that they're branding next year's Wrestlemania as being in Silicon Valley which makes me wonder. WWE Studios is a relic. They might have a "profitable" model, but they're still tens of millions in the hole from previous mistakes and scratching for a little here and little there isn't anywhere close to the millions that a project like the original Marine movie made them several years ago. I think this area is a distraction for the company but maybe they've finally turned it around. It can be a $20M segment but there tends to be a ton of ebb & flow when it comes WWE Studios and it's driven a ton of writeoffs in the past. When you look at all of this, the biggest growth opportunities are obviously Digital and Licensing. Live Events needs to grow but turning that around isn't an overnight process and I think there's been some really negative trends for several years which have been completely masked by the fact that WWE grew in overall revenue from $475M to $508M in the past five years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Eduardo James Posted July 8, 2014 Report Share Posted July 8, 2014 Off topic question: Did everyone really just ignore Spunk popping up out of nowhere after how many years? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted July 8, 2014 Report Share Posted July 8, 2014 The hard pitch of the Network on RAW last night and ANOTHER free trial I took as a very bad sign. They're clearly getting super worried about the subscriber drops and the slow growth of the thing. It's been discussed how they've done a poor job promoting the service on TV, and I suppose it's better late than never, but it felt like desperation. I'm not expecting any sort of subscriber growth at this point, and actually a lot of people dropping the service. I've already decided to drop it after SummerSlam because I'm not super happy with the variety of content (was really expecting Georgia, Mid South, AWA stuff by this point, of which there is none of yet). I do appreciate that they've added the Clash of Champions shows. They're banking on the MNW rollout as a big selling point, and maybe it will be for some people, but it's not something I'm super interested in. Also, several months in now and I still have a ton of technical problems, which is inexcusable and the frustration of that outweighs the positives of the service. I had major issues with the TLC ppv. It's very rare that I can watch something on it without a hitch, be it freezing/buffering/loading issues or the app just crashing out of nowhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 9, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2014 Free trials aren't uncommon for cable networks. HBO, Showtime, even some of the sports tier channels do it from time to time to try to spike up new subs. They also tend to do it at times when they think they'll get viewers, and in turn potential subs. So say Fox Soccer back in the day might do it on opening weekend of the EPL season. If you dig it, you'll sub. Or HBO might do it a weekend a new season of a series starts, or some other eventish thing that might get people to buy. Not going to say this is a good sign, and it quite possible is poor. But you probably would have wanted to do a freebie sometime prior to SummerSlam. I also probably would want to do one prior to Survivor Series. That's on the assumption that those shows will be loaded up, and that they'll be keys to renewals and hitting the year end target. I don't watch the shows regularly at all, so I have no idea how hard they're pushing the Network. If they had any brain, they would be pushing it in non-hard sell every week (i.e. ads that regularly change, and tie ins when logical ones come up). Then of course hard sell it leading into each PPV with a good ad putting over the value of the Network. Frankly someone there should be spending a couple of weeks watching nothing but ESPN and ESPN2 to see how the ESPN boys sell their content/shows. It's annoying as all hell for those of us who often get annoyed by the World Wide Leader... but they're also very good at what they do in turning out numbers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
peachchaos Posted July 9, 2014 Report Share Posted July 9, 2014 Until WWE sees the value in a wrestling match (and the accompanying promos and angles), we'll never get what we want and they'll never find the audience they need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted July 9, 2014 Report Share Posted July 9, 2014 Free trials aren't uncommon for cable networks. HBO, Showtime, even some of the sports tier channels do it from time to time to try to spike up new subs. They also tend to do it at times when they think they'll get viewers, and in turn potential subs. So say Fox Soccer back in the day might do it on opening weekend of the EPL season. If you dig it, you'll sub. Or HBO might do it a weekend a new season of a series starts, or some other eventish thing that might get people to buy. Not going to say this is a good sign, and it quite possible is poor. But you probably would have wanted to do a freebie sometime prior to SummerSlam. I also probably would want to do one prior to Survivor Series. That's on the assumption that those shows will be loaded up, and that they'll be keys to renewals and hitting the year end target. I don't watch the shows regularly at all, so I have no idea how hard they're pushing the Network. If they had any brain, they would be pushing it in non-hard sell every week (i.e. ads that regularly change, and tie ins when logical ones come up). Then of course hard sell it leading into each PPV with a good ad putting over the value of the Network. Frankly someone there should be spending a couple of weeks watching nothing but ESPN and ESPN2 to see how the ESPN boys sell their content/shows. It's annoying as all hell for those of us who often get annoyed by the World Wide Leader... but they're also very good at what they do in turning out numbers. They've done a piss poor job promoting it on TV, when they've even bothered to do so. No logical content tie ins whatsoever, poor communication to the audience of what the service offers and why it's on paper so great, poor explanation to older/less tech savvy fans......very poor job promoting "special events" Which was why it was so jarring that RAW went into such hard-sell shilling the Network mode when most weeks they basically ignore the thing. For anyone who's been following the progress of the thing and is a weekly WWE watcher it was clearly desperate measure tactics It seems crazy to think how positive a lot of us were on the Network early on, and how it's pretty much been a complete disaster for the company on every level Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 11, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2014 Logical tie ins are so easy. They also tend to be so valuable since they don't feel like a hard sell. If you plan them out well, a customer just thinks, "Hey... that's interesting... I need to check that out" rather than "ESPN is pushing the HELL out of this and it's starting to annoy me!" If a non-subscriber sees enough good tie-ins pop up over the course of a few months that he thinks would be good to check out, he starts adding that to the value of "free PPV" and you might add another sub. I still think they should do a live house show on Saturday night which is then available on-demand if people were out partying. Production costs are always a worry, but I'd low-tech it... which is likely a heck of a lot easier now than in say 1986 given all the tech advances in cameras and production equipment. An exclusive on the Network, and run enough angles and storyline per month on it that are played off on Raw (talked about without being *shown*) that it's part of the Product rather than just a stand alone thing. Though I do wonder if their contract for Raw/SD prohibits another show along those lines. Seems unlikely, but who knows. You wonder how much of it is Vince and others in the company having the intent to keep Network costs lower-than-low with the intent of using PPV as not only the driver, but also the only thing most people care about. If that's the case, they a probably making a mistake. You've got to give people who drop that money a reason to watch the show a number of times a month rather than just the PPV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Posted July 11, 2014 Report Share Posted July 11, 2014 Free trials aren't uncommon for cable networks. HBO, Showtime, even some of the sports tier channels do it from time to time to try to spike up new subs. They also tend to do it at times when they think they'll get viewers, and in turn potential subs. So say Fox Soccer back in the day might do it on opening weekend of the EPL season. If you dig it, you'll sub. Or HBO might do it a weekend a new season of a series starts, or some other eventish thing that might get people to buy. Not going to say this is a good sign, and it quite possible is poor. But you probably would have wanted to do a freebie sometime prior to SummerSlam. I also probably would want to do one prior to Survivor Series. That's on the assumption that those shows will be loaded up, and that they'll be keys to renewals and hitting the year end target. I don't watch the shows regularly at all, so I have no idea how hard they're pushing the Network. If they had any brain, they would be pushing it in non-hard sell every week (i.e. ads that regularly change, and tie ins when logical ones come up). Then of course hard sell it leading into each PPV with a good ad putting over the value of the Network. Frankly someone there should be spending a couple of weeks watching nothing but ESPN and ESPN2 to see how the ESPN boys sell their content/shows. It's annoying as all hell for those of us who often get annoyed by the World Wide Leader... but they're also very good at what they do in turning out numbers. I assume they're doing a free trial now in an effort to boost subscriber numbers prior to the conference call at the end of the month, where they'll reveal the new totals. Don't know if you need one prior to SummerSlam. I've glanced a little more at the shows lately and they've been pushing the network fairly strongly. I imagine come SummerSlam time, the card will be as stacked as it can be and that alone will be a selling point for the Network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 11, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2014 Summer Slam is the key Big Show around the time the six-month subs were up. It looked like the most natural spot to try to get in new subs to offset those who don't renew: load up a show, do a free week leading into it where you can also push the PPV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted July 11, 2014 Report Share Posted July 11, 2014 Actually, the WON has been pointing all year to Night of Champions as the big show, since that's closer to the time subscriptions expire. They plan to load up that show even more than Summerslam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bierschwale Posted July 11, 2014 Report Share Posted July 11, 2014 Yeah, that's why they pushed HHH-Reigns back to NoC with Orton-Reigns taking its place at SummerSlam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 11, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2014 I get that it's closer, but it also leaves little margin for error. If a loaded up Summer Slam doesn't pop a good number of new subs, then you have NoC as a fall back to run another hot match/angle for. The WWE doesn't seem to get regularly pushing things to sustain numbers. You look at HBO, and even with Game of Thrones being the current huge monster draw, they're constantly looking not only for the next biggie, but also for other shows that fill in the balance of the year to give viewers the belief that they're getting good content in those stretches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 From the file marked "stockholders are crazy": Shares of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE +6.5%) move higher on heavy volume on renewed buyout speculation. The M&A buzz in the media sector kicked into a higher gear yesterday after 21st Century Fox made an offer for Time Warner. Though the streaming sub growth at WWE hasn't dazzled, analysts think the initiative could still draw interest from a company on the distribution side of the business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 What is M&A? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted July 17, 2014 Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 mergers and acquisitions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 17, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 17, 2014 I wonder what the financial planning benefits would be for the WWE to be sold now rather than go through the Estate when Vince and Linda drop dead. Of course it depends on whether Steph & Trip and Shane want to stick around controlling it after Vince and Linda are dead. Since Shane appears *not* to want to, there's an interesting trust question if he wants to cash out. It's strange to ponder why Vince would want to sell off his baby when he seemed *not* to want to Joint Venture through the years on stuff like the Network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steenalized Posted July 18, 2014 Report Share Posted July 18, 2014 I wonder how alienable the shares even are. Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't Vince and his family (maybe a few others) hold a separate class with the real voting power? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 18, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2014 They have a separate class. The voting rights ratio is higher than conversion rate, which would let them sell off shares if they're hard up for $$$ while continuing to control the company via the "votes". My recollection is that it's a 1:1 conversion if they're sold. If they're selling the company (i.e. accepting a tender offer), there shouldn't be an issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mookeighana Posted July 18, 2014 Report Share Posted July 18, 2014 They have a separate class. The voting rights ratio is higher than conversion rate, which would let them sell off shares if they're hard up for $$$ while continuing to control the company via the "votes". My recollection is that it's a 1:1 conversion if they're sold. If they're selling the company (i.e. accepting a tender offer), there shouldn't be an issue. Yes. Class A shares get one vote per share and Class B shares get ten votes per share. And yes, it's a 1:1 conversion. "If, at any time, any shares of Class B common stock are beneficially owned by any person other than Vincent McMahon, Linda McMahon, any descendant of either of them, any entity which is wholly owned and is controlled by any combination of such persons or any trust, all the beneficiaries of which are any combination of such persons, each of those shares will automatically convert into shares of Class A common stock." Back in Feb, there was 75 million total shares of WWE stock split 31.3 class A and 43.8 class B. There was a total of SIX holders of Class B shares back then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted July 18, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2014 At the beginning of March, it looks like: 31,924,430 Class A 43,223,134 Class B http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1091907/000120677414000883/wwe_def14a.htm The listed Class B were: 39,272,641 - Vince & Linda566,670 - Linda stand alone609,733 - Steph Trust 20041,849,393 - Steph Trust 2008 That's 42,298,437. I'm guessing the remaining 924,697 is Shane's. Looking back at the 2013 proxy: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1091907/000120677413001064/wwe_def14a.htm "1,862,733 shares of Class B common stock held by the Stephanie McMahon Levesque Trust U/A Vincent K. McMahon Irrevocable Trust, dated June 24, 2004 (the “2004 Trust”); and (iii) 1,849,393 shares of Class B common stock held by the Stephanie McMahon Levesque Trust u/a Vincent K. McMahon Irrev. Trust dtd. 12/23/2008 (the “2008 Trust”)" So Steph has unloaded 1,253,000 of her 2004 Trust shares. "1,499,393 shares of Class B common stock held by the Shane McMahon Trust U/A Vincent K. McMahon Irrevocable Trust dated December 23, 2008, over which shares Shane McMahon has sole investment power" And Shane has moved 574,696. The overall number of Class B had dropped 2,277,696, so that accounts for most of it. Guessing some variation of Vince/Linda offloaded the remaining 450K for some reason, but having sifted through the filings to find it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.